Dr Emma Foster on epilepsy seizures: American Academy of Neurology podcast

Dr Emma Foster

Dr Emma Foster of the Department of Neuroscience, has had her work on epilepsy seizures featured on the October issue of the American Academy of Neurology Podcast.

In the first segment of the podcast, Dr. Emma Foster talks with Dr. Katherine Zarroli about her paper comparing the presentation and management of patients with community- and hospital-onset first seizures attending the same hospital.

Emma's paper is focused on a retrospective survey of medical charts to compare the differences between new-onset seizures that occur in the community and new-onset seizures that occur in people who are already in hospital for other reasons.

She found that seizures presenting in these distinct settings have different aetiologies and prognoses, requiring different investigation and treatment approaches.  The hospital-onset seizure group were older and more likely to have acute symptomatic seizures. The commonest associated provoking factor in the hospital-onset group was proconvulsant drugs, especially tranexamic acid in the context of elective surgery. Conversely, the community-onset seizure group were more likely to be diagnosed with new-onset epilepsy. A similar proportion of patients in each group were prescribed antiepileptic drug therapy on discharge, revealing a non-standardized approach to antiepileptic drug prescribing. Despite not fulfilling ILAE epilepsy diagnostic criteria, almost three-quarters of patients who survived to discharge were prescribed antiepileptic drug therapy. Conversely, of those who did meet ILAE criteria, one-third were not prescribed antiepileptic drug therapy.

Listen to the full interview here: https://www.aan.com/rss/search/home/episodedetail/?item=3476

Dr. Emma Foster is a epilepsy fellow in Professor Patrick Kwan's group:  https://www.monash.edu/medicine/ccs/neuroscience/research/kwan-group